The Diocese of Amsterdam has announced plans to close 60% of its churches over the course of the next five years, in a move prompted by a plummeting number of active Catholics.

The diocese, which had 218 parishes as recently as 1980, now has only 164 churches; of these, 99 will be closed under a reorganization plan, and 37 more will be “support churches” slated for later closing in a second round of downsizing.

Bishop Jan Hendriks said that the covid lockdown pandemic “has accelerated the process of shrinkage we were already in: faithful churchgoers of an advanced age have grown even older and have sometimes stopped attending church; others have become accustomed to a different format for Sunday mornings, volunteers have dropped out, choirs have stopped.”